Having a 'Niche'

Many artists have had huge success this is because they have created a new niche within the music industry.

Heather Mcdonald in your guide to music careers said:

'Try to find something that will make people more curious about you- give them a reason to want to know more'

She also talked about how every piece of the media is being bombarded with many other music hopefuls and therefore you need to make yourself stand out and this is what many people have done.

For example this was shown through the Super Furry Animals in 2003 with Golden Retriever. It was not just the song that was different but their music video was also extremely different.

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_6yzteqPt0

The video shows uses of Intertexuality within the video. For example there are times where the music lyrics are linked to the visuals.

Also the video is performance based and we are exposed to the notion of looking as we are often given direct addresses to the lead singer.

Voyerism is almost used as we are being made to look at something different and appealing to some people.

Overall this band has created a niche in the market to help them to appeal to a particular audience. They have mainly done this by using intertextuality referring to the 1970's rock bands, with long hair etc. giving an amusing performance video that is going to appeal to their audience. This therefore has made them very successful.

Other artists that have been successful in creating a niche are the Spice Girls and Gorrilaz.

The Spice Girls

The Spice Girls were hugely successful and this was because they cleverly planned the whole idea of the band. Each member of the band had a character.

There was Baby Spice, Scary Spice, Posh Spice, Sporty Spice and Ginger Spice.

This was brilliant as their audience was of the younger generation, mainly teenage girls and these girls could relate to one of the spice girls. This sprung to the band releasing dolls of themselves that again maximised their fan base as each fan felt closer to the band and felt a part of the band.

Therefore the band were extremely cleaver in how they marketed themselves as they made sure that they would be liked by all their audience.

The Gorrilaz

The Gorrilaz are a completely different type of band and are relatively new. But they almost followed the same principal of the spice girls as they as well made them selves into characters, but cartoon characters.

In every Music video that the band have made, they have used their cartoon character's to represent them. This shows that they are different as not many other artists do this. It's Unique and that is why many people like them.

There are many ways of creating a niche, here are some of the ways in which artists have done so;

Creating a star image Motif

Richard Dyer states that..

'a star is an image constructed from a range of materials'

Examples of this would be

• Take That's Logo
• Cheryl Cole and her Fashion
• JLS and The Saturday's Colour Coding

Voyeurism

The Idea comes from Freud, it explains why the male veiwer's gaze is at the objected female on display. Also why we are subjected to looking at certain things within the music video's and promo's. 

Example's of this are Lady Gaga in her video of her song 'Bad Romance'. This is because there are many close up shots of her face and eyes.